Sapphire

"Teacher, my name is Figo."

"Y-yes, sorry." Doug showed Figo and Miya to the sofa in the living room, then turned and pulled Kong over. "This is your big brother Figo. He's a Marine your grandpa taught, and he's really impressive. He's only... twenty-eight this year, right? Aokiji told me they'll be promoting him to Vice Admiral soon."

"Hello, Big Brother Figo." Little Kong was very polite, speaking in a serious, measured manner.

"Hello, Kong," Figo replied just as seriously. "Shouldn't you call me Uncle, though?"

"You and Xiaoya aren't married yet, so Big Brother and Big Sister are fine." Vice Admiral Doug shook his head and motioned for Kong to go back to his room to play. Then he asked Figo about his eight years in Impel Down.

He already knew most of it. Ever since news of Figo capturing the Fish-Man who invaded Impel Down seven years ago had reached Marine Headquarters, Doug had, as Miya said, paid some attention to Figo, once an unremarkable student of his. Even so, he hadn't expected Figo to grow so quickly.

"Eight years of guarding prisoners and interrogating them. How dull and exhausting," Doug sighed. Then he asked again, "How did you and Xiaoya end up together and come to visit me?"

Miya, who had been listening quietly, finally spoke. She told them about meeting Figo at sea and about Jellal, captain of the Laughing Pirates, killing himself.

"So he really was captured. A man with the potential for Conqueror's Haki," Doug said. "He didn't want to drag his crew into it, so he chose to die. I suppose that makes him a tough man. If the Laughing Pirates had kept roaming the New World, the Marines wouldn't normally have sent a large force after them. Why... did they go to Sabaody to provoke those Celestial Dragons?"

Had they really drawn an Admiral by provoking the Celestial Dragons? Figo had caught a bit of the conversation when he first came in, but he'd been focused on Kong then. Now that he heard it again, he looked curious.

The captain of the Laughing Pirates had a Crime Index of only 25. He'd certainly committed plenty of crimes, but that score didn't come close to matching his 640-million-Berry bounty. Compared with the criminals on the fifth and sixth levels of Impel Down, he was practically a good person.

So even though he was SSR1, capturing him wouldn't earn Figo as much as capturing the Nun—not to mention his Capture Participation was only 35%. Thinking of that, Figo casually selected his reward.

[Reward: Swordsmanship +350→9886 (Level 3 Iron-Cutting Swordsman)]

As expected, it was only that much.

After seeing rewards in the two- or three-thousand range, these few hundred points seemed paltry.

Meanwhile, at Doug's question, Miya sighed softly. "On the way back with him in custody, he told me his story. I don't know if it was true. If it was... I really don't know what to think."

As Miya told the story, Figo instinctively felt that Jellal's Character Event 1 was probably about this. Character Events were usually what a person wanted most or some kind of obsession.

As he listened, he activated the Character Event.

Doug listened to the story. Figo watched the movie.

A black-haired boy, eight or nine years old and living on the streets, found an abandoned baby girl in a corner of an alley.

The baby was unusual. Her pure blue eyes were like gemstones, gleaming in the sunlight. She reached out to him and smiled.

The boy, a drifter, hesitated and looked back several times. In the end, he still picked her up.

That was where the story began.

But Figo was starting to lose interest. Another little girl, and another tragedy in the making...

Tragedies never stopped happening in the world of pirates.

In the end, he didn't cut off the scene, because Miya was indeed telling the same story.

The next part was all about survival.

The boy carried water for wealthy families to earn pocket money. One bucket was full of water; the other held the baby girl he'd found.

When the boy collected scrap and old iron, he made a little cart out of an iron pot and pulled the girl along in it.

When the boy set up a street stall to sell his "treasures" from the rubbish, the now slightly older girl sat beside him, giggling and drawing in customers.

Before, he'd only had to support himself. Now he had two mouths to feed. The boy worked harder than ever, but he was happier. Whenever he saw the baby's pure blue eyes and innocent smile, he couldn't help smiling from the bottom of his heart.

The days passed. The boy gradually became a young man, and the baby girl grew into a little girl.

When she was five, their life suddenly improved. In the scene, they passed several piles of rubbish when the girl suddenly pointed at one. The boy searched through it and always found something valuable. Every single time!

She had been born with powerful Observation Haki!

Thanks to the girl's ability, their life improved day by day. They bought new clothes and even a little house to live in.

The turning point came when the girl was seven. A richly dressed couple found them, weeping as they claimed that the girl was their lost child.

"We ran into pirates and panicked. We left her in a corner for a little while..."

"When we went back, she was gone..."

"Thank you, thank you, young man. If you're willing, we'll be your parents too. From now on, we'll be a family!"

Their words were sincere, and so were their emotions.

The boy looked at the timid girl. He remembered that pirates really had been terrorizing the island around that time. He also thought of the girl asking why the two of them had no parents. Still wary, he agreed to go with the couple.

The four of them formed a new family, and life grew happier. A month passed, then two. The couple treated him wonderfully, not just the girl. It seemed they really did regard him as their own child.

The boy gradually let down his guard.

Then one day, after he went out, the house was empty!

What followed was a frenzied, endless search. One year, two years, three years passed. The boy got his first sword and killed his first pirate. With his remarkable talent, he grew stronger and stronger.

At last, when he was twenty-three, the boy—now looking much like the captured Jellal—finally found the couple who had once taken them in!

As expected, they were a pair of human traffickers.

They had long had their eyes on the little girl's special ability. Street children were wary, so the couple had spent three months pretending to be kind before finally kidnapping her!

The two traffickers trembled under Jellal's blade and confessed everything.

"Where's Sapphire? I asked where Sapphire is now! Who did you sell her to?!"

The male trafficker stammered, "We... we took her all the way to Sabaody Archipelago, thinking we could get a good price for her. But then—then those damned Celestial Dragons made an offer. Nobody dared to bid against them. Really... we didn't get many Berries for her."

"I didn't ask how much you sold her for! The Celestial Dragons?" Jellal clenched his teeth, on the verge of losing control. "Damn it! Did Sapphire become a slave? Which Celestial Dragon? When?!"

But no matter how he questioned them, the traffickers refused to say. Jellal didn't get an answer until he tracked down the person who had hosted that auction.

"A-a little girl with blue eyes?"

"I-I remember. It was Saint Cassilia. Saint Cassilia bought her! It wasn't my fault, I swear!"

"Saint Cassilia..." Jellal drew a deep breath. He felt he was one step closer to finding Sapphire again, but then he noticed the auctioneer's evasive gaze. If that was all there was to it, the damn traffickers wouldn't have needed to hide it from him.

An immense fear enveloped him. Jellal trembled as he asked, "What happened next?"

"Then... then... Saint Cassilia thought her eyes were pretty, so she ordered the slave to—to gouge them out...

"Once they were out, they didn't look like sapphires anymore. Saint Cassilia got very, very angry, and ordered the slave to put them back... That girl... No! It wasn't my fault!"

A flash of red. Then silence.

Jellal bowed his head.

"Heh heh... Heh heh heh heh..."

"Saint Cassilia!"

His Conqueror's Haki awakened!

BAM! A massive fist slammed down, shattering the coffee table in Vice Admiral Doug's house!

The burly old man stood up. The warmth was gone from his face. He trembled, then fell silent for a moment before saying nothing and walking into the bedroom.

"Whenever he hears about justice being defiled, Teacher gets furious." Miya looked sad too. "Figo, you understand, right? It isn't that he sympathizes with pirates. It's just..."

She paused and looked into Figo's eyes.

"I spent eight years in Impel Down. I've seen all kinds of pirates, and many of them had their reasons." Figo was silent for a moment, then shook his head. "Maybe because I haven't experienced it myself, but I still don't think hardship excuses a crime."

He looked at Miya and said, "But of course, it's fine to sympathize with them, and it's fine to be angry. I'll be a little gentler with unfortunate pirates who had their reasons, too. We're all human, after all. Once you've seen or heard about something like that, it's hard not to feel sympathy."

The little girl with blue-crystal eyes, like an angel, still lingered in his mind.

[Event Requirement: Let Jellal, or help Jellal, kill Saint Cassilia—preferably by torturing the Celestial Dragon to death.]

"It's hard not to be angry."

I'm asking for votes again as I continue with two chapters and over 5,000 words! Figo's character card is up now—please give it a like. Also, I'm looking for an avatar for Figo: black-haired, tall, and rugged-looking. If you have a good picture, please send it to the author in the group chat. I'll shamelessly borrow it.